Elden Ring
GameBy FromSoftware · Released Feb 25, 2022
Reports and documents about Elden Ring
Plus: A Big Steam Week, With Warhammer 40k & Trek To Yomi Up Next
This analysis examines current and upcoming performance trends for premium PC and console games, utilizing proprietary tracking data to forecast market success.
- The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe achieved immediate commercial success, selling over 100,000 units on Steam within 24 hours and reaching a peak of 21,000 concurrent users.
- Dune: Spice Wars demonstrated strong early market interest for strategy titles, securing 8,000 concurrent users during its Steam Early Access launch.
- Elden Ring and Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga remain the dominant paid downloads across Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch platforms.
March Spend Down 15% to $4.9 Billion, Q1 Down 8% to $13.9 Billion: US Monthly Charts
The United States video game market experienced a notable contraction during the first quarter of 2022, with total spending falling 8% year-on-year to $13.9 billion.
- US video game spending in March 2022 decreased by 15% year-over-year to $4.9 billion, with Q1 2022 spending down 8% to $13.9 billion, indicating a continued decline across all categories.
- Elden Ring was the best-selling game in March and for the year-to-date, outperforming eight new releases and showing double-digit percentage growth in dollar sales compared to its February launch.
- Hardware spending dropped 24% to $515 million in March, though Xbox Series X|S led in dollar sales for both March and Q1, setting new March records for the platform in both dollars and units.
Plus: Steam Debuts for April Falter So Far
This analysis examines the state of the global video game market during mid-April 2022, focusing on Steam performance trends and cross-platform sales data.
- The Steam market is increasingly bifurcated, with revenue dominated by evergreen live-service titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Lost Ark, and Apex Legends, while new mid-tier releases struggle to gain traction.
- The estimated 'new normal' for first-year gross revenue for many professional developers on Steam has shifted downward to the $100,000–$200,000 range.
- New indie titles are seeing underwhelming launches, with peak concurrent user counts often falling between 100 and 500 for games with development budgets ranging from $200,000 to $2 million.
7 Elden Rings - Parody Animated Music Video
The intersection of popular music and high-difficulty action role-playing games serves as a humorous lens through which to examine the cultural impact of Elden Ring.
- The parody of Ariana Grande’s 'Seven Rings' serves as a cultural artifact capturing the 2022 release window of Elden Ring, illustrating the intersection of high-difficulty gaming and mainstream pop culture.
- The content highlights the repetitive, punishing nature of soulslike gameplay, specifically focusing on the player experience of grinding, stat management, and repeated failure against bosses like Margit.
- The video functions as a satirical critique of the gaming community’s tendency to over-analyze game lore and mechanics by mapping arbitrary pop culture references onto complex game systems.
Plus: April's Big New Winners & Losers on Steam
This analysis evaluates the commercial performance of video game debuts for April 2022, primarily focusing on Steam while providing secondary insights into the console, Epic Games Store, and Meta Quest markets.
- The median ratio of pre-launch 'Hype Score' to first-week review count remains stable at 0.16, serving as a reliable benchmark for predicting commercial performance.
- Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga tripled its sales expectations, while The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe outperformed its projections by a factor of ten.
- Underperforming titles like Chinatown Detective Agency and Uragun achieved review-to-sales ratios of only 0.01 to 0.02, highlighting a frequent failure to convert follower counts into active buyers.
Ghostwire: Tokyo, The Planet Crafter Hit It Big on Steam
This analysis examines the commercial performance and market trends of recent video game releases across Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Epic Games Store during late March 2022.
- Ghostwire: Tokyo reached a peak of 14,000 concurrent users on Steam while maintaining strong performance as a PlayStation 5 exclusive.
- The independent survival game The Planet Crafter outperformed expectations by hitting 5,400 concurrent users shortly after its late March 2022 launch.
- High market saturation and the influence of subscription services like Game Pass are contributing to a 'Steam malaise' for indie titles, as evidenced by the low traction of critically acclaimed games like Norco and A Memoir Blue.
Remake an ELDEN RING scene with NO MODELS
Creating complex game environments without external 3D modeling software is achievable through the strategic use of Unity primitives and modular design principles.
- Complex game environments can be constructed using only Unity primitives by creating a modular library of basic prefabs like bricks, planks, and pillars.
- Visual variety is achieved by applying a strict color palette of three tonal variations per material and introducing subtle irregularities in the placement, rotation, and height of individual primitives.
- Structural realism is enhanced by using corner pillars to hide wall junctions and placing black cubes to simulate unlit interior spaces.
Elden Wrung: It Hurts so Good
This analysis examines the shifting landscape of the video game industry during the first quarter of 2022, focusing on the tension between traditional business models and emerging digital trends.
- Elden Ring achieved significant commercial success by selling over 12 million units within its first three weeks, proving the continued viability of high-difficulty, premium-priced titles.
- The video game industry is experiencing a 'talent war' as traditional publishers lose leverage to Big Tech and crypto firms, forcing a reevaluation of compensation and labor practices regarding workplace toxicity and crunch.
- Sony is aggressively pivoting toward live-service multiplayer expertise through the strategic acquisitions of Haven Studios and Bungie to future-proof its portfolio.
Plus: Eureka, Some New Indie Hits (Finally!)
Mid-March 2022 marked a significant recovery for indie game debuts on Steam following a stagnant February.
- Indie game launches on Steam recovered in mid-March 2022 after a stagnant February, which saw only five games reach 1,000 reviews in their first week compared to twelve in January.
- Core Keeper emerged as a top performer, selling over 100,000 units in its first two days and reaching a peak of 22,000 concurrent users.
- Market success for indie titles is currently driven by genre gaps, strong art direction, and high engagement from the streaming community.
Why Dread Hunger Got so Big; What Steam Tags Are Hot?
This analysis examines the factors driving success for specific PC and console titles while providing a broader overview of current market trends on Steam and major console storefronts.
- The Chinese market is a primary driver for multiplayer viral growth, evidenced by Dread Hunger, where 68% of lifetime reviews are in Chinese and concurrent users surged from 4,200 to over 62,400 following its 1.0 release.
- High-budget titles face significant launch risks; Babylon’s Fall peaked at only 1,100 concurrent users due to technical issues and poor business decisions.
- Steam 'Hype' scores—a metric combining wishlist rankings, followers, and forum traffic—are effective predictors of launch success for titles like Hero’s Hour and ELEX II.
Cook Serve Forever Announcement Splash Deconstructed
Strategic promotional tactics for indie game sequels are exemplified by the announcement of Cook Serve Forever, which utilized a multi-point campaign to drive immediate discovery.
- The gaming industry is experiencing a post-pandemic market correction, evidenced by a 15% decline in total U.S. gaming spend in March 2022 and projected slowdowns in content revenue and engagement hours.
- Microsoft’s Xbox division achieved $3.74 billion in revenue during early 2022, with 40% of its 25 million Game Pass subscribers opting for the Ultimate tier, largely driven by cloud gaming adoption.
- Meta’s Reality Labs reported a 30% year-over-year revenue increase to $695 million, yet sustained a $2.96 billion quarterly loss, underscoring the significant capital required to scale VR ecosystems.
Video Game Streaming Trends Report: 2022 First Quarter
The primary aim of the analysis is to map the state of global video-game streaming in the first quarter of 2022, linking audience behavior to platform performance, game releases, and advertising potential.
- Twitch maintains a dominant market position, accounting for approximately 75% of all streamed hours and 80% of esports viewership.
- Total hours watched in Q1 2022 declined 6% from the previous quarter, yet remains 66% higher than Q1 2020 and 140% above Q1 2019 levels.
- A small segment of core viewers, representing only 7.8% of the total audience, generates two-thirds of all watch time and is 24 times more receptive to repeated advertising than casual viewers.